


Salted caramel

by assassi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Dark Themes, Canon-Typical Violence, Denial, Guilt, Happy Ending, M/M, Mates, Slow Build, Twilight References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 16:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18154352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassi/pseuds/assassi
Summary: The closer he got the more clear the feeling became. And a sound. So there was a sound. Like a quiet thunder that got louder and louder the closer it got. A heartbeat. He reached out and before he knew it his mom was yelling an exasperated,“Derek Hale!”He blinked slowly, focusing……on his hand, resting on a rounded belly.He looked up, blushing madly. The woman was obviously surprised, but not spooked or hostile. If anything, a slow kind smile spread on her pretty face.“Well, hello there”, she said, amused.





	Salted caramel

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the picture included at the begining :) Also, it was written in a rush, so if you see any mistakes let me know.  
> Feel free to share your thoughts on the fic :)

Derek dragged his feet after his mom and Laura who were arguing what kind of ice cream to get. Laura always insisted on chocolate and his mom liked to experiment with flavors. Derek…

Derek was just fed up with this grocery store.

“…Derek? Derek? What kind would you like?”, his mom asked.

“Salted caramel”, he muttered, already bored out of his mind.

“But mooom!”, Laura immediately whined.

Derek wandered off, trying to put as much distance from his sister’s high pitched tone as he could. Something else caught his attention and his ears perked up. It wasn’t exactly a sound (he could still hear his mother trying to placate Laura a few isles away) but it wasn’t a scent either. Yet _something_ pulled him towards the cash registers. The closer he got the more clear the feeling became. And a sound. So _there_ _was_ a sound. Like a quiet thunder that got louder and louder the closer it got. A heartbeat. He reached out and before he knew it his mom was yelling an exasperated,

“Derek Hale!”

He blinked slowly, focusing…

…on his hand, resting on a rounded belly.

He looked up, blushing madly. The woman was obviously surprised, but not spooked or hostile. If anything, a slow kind smile spread on her pretty face.

“Well, hello there”, she said, amused.

“Derek, hands off the… I mean, I’m so sorry! He’s not usually so… handsy”, his mother babbled.

The other woman laughed. “It’s okay”, she said, reaching out a hand. “I’m Claudia Stilinski.”

“Talia Hale”, his mom answered, shaking the offered hand.

* * *

 

Talia and Claudia didn’t remain friends like the gossip would say later. His mom was still a bit miffed at Derek’s behavior. It was one thing to be tactile and affectionate with Pack but another to go touch random people’s bellies! It was also very uncharacteristic for Derek to do so. He was usually a bit closed off and wary around new people, yet now he had acted totally unexpected. He was reprimanded and, in the beginning, completely mortified with himself. But as it usually happened with kids, he soon forgot all about the strange occurrence.

* * *

 

Something didn’t sit right with him today. He was usually content to be with his friends, kind of the leader of their small group due to his place as a captain of the basketball team. He had long ago outgrown the shy, closed off kid that he used to be and was now an outgoing teenager.

 _A typical jock_ , Laura would say.

 _Cocky and arrogant_ , Peter would add.

 _Sweet and passionate_ , his mom would insist.

Currently distracted, he decided. He tried to pay attention to what his friends were saying, chatting excitedly and laughing but he couldn’t focus. He tried to offer a smile where it seemed appropriate but his gaze wandered the small diner, his wolf nervous and restless.

“…going now, Mischief, come on!”

His ears perked. There was something familiar in that voice. He looked around.

And his eyes stopped and fixed right on a pair of pale caramel-brown, smiling at him over a woman’s shoulder. The nickname fit perfectly. The kid was barely five, Derek decided, and his eyes were sparkling with mirth and… Mischief. And they were staring right into his own, as if compelling him to… what? Derek didn’t know and he couldn’t look away. The kid was smiling, taunting him. Derek’s wolf whined, suddenly ready to go there and snatch the boy and curl around him and do anything that pup wanted.

_What?!_

“…excited about the game on Friday!”

“…gonna kick asses, right, Derek? Derek?”

Derek’s gaze snapped to meet Aaron’s expectant eyes. He blinked once, then looked back over his shoulder. The kid was gone.

But that strange feeling wasn’t.

“Y-yeah. We’re going to win that game…”, he muttered weakly.

“Let’s go get some ice cream!”, one of the girls suggested.

Ice cream sounded great right now, Derek thought.

Salted caramel flavor.

* * *

 

Derek sat, shaking badly and wrapped with a blanket, in one of the hard plastic chairs in the Sheriff’s Department. All he could smell was ash and smoke and… and… he couldn’t, he just couldn’t think about that other smell…

“…your time, son. Whenever you’re ready”, the quiet voice said, the strong hand squeezing his shoulder with gentle reassurance. Derek looked up a bit to read the name tag.

 _Stilinski_.

Something twisted inside him, something almost forgotten and he looked up at the man’s kind eyes. He had expected pale brown for some reason. They were blue.

“Derek!”, Laura’s hysterical call caught his attention and a moment later he was pulled into her arms, clutched tightly, as if…

…as if he was all she had left.

As if she had no idea he was the sole reason that everyone else was gone.

He squeezed his eyes, feeling his heart constrict painfully in his chest. He didn’t deserve her warm embrace. He didn’t deserve anyone’s affection.

Any dreams he’d ever had of love were reduced to ashes tonight.

* * *

 

He’d thought he had lost everything that night. He hadn’t; he still had Laura.

But even that was taken away from him. And with his last family his last semblance of Pack was gone. He was practically an Omega, nearly feral with grief and rage, such blinding rage. He was untethered, a monster let loose in the woods where his family house had once stood, dangerous and vulnerable at same time.

When he caught those two scents lurking around the shell of the Hale house, he was furious. What else did they want from him? What else did they want to take?! He was ready to tear them apart, to fucking finish…

Any thought, any other feeling except of a strange calmness, was gone from his head the moment he locked eyes with one of the boys. Hazel met salted caramel and Derek…

…Derek was gone.

The loud fury, screaming inside him was suddenly quiet. The restless monster stopped pacing and settled, scenting the air hopefully, focused only on that boy across the clearing. His wolf nudged him. _Come on, say something_.

“This is private property.”

His wolf whined. _Really, Derek?!_

The guy babbled something and began to walk away. Everything inside him screamed at him to follow him. Because for the first time in months Derek wasn’t untethered; wasn’t a packless Omega. He had a focus and he was…

He was a man with a purpose. He had come here to avenge his family and he had no time for strange feelings that he didn’t even understand! Anger was his anchor! Not some teenager with bambi eyes! He snapped at his wolf to shut up, turned around and walked away.

* * *

 

Derek wasn’t stupid, okay? It took him merely a second to put two and two together and figure out who that boy was. _What_ he was. But he needed to make sure, be absolutely, 100% positive that…

Mate.

The word mocked him from the yellowed pages of the family archives, the few that had survived due to being kept in the vault. They covered everything that Derek had experienced: being drawn to someone he had never met before, the fierce need to protect and pamper them, the sudden calm when he was around that person when everything else was falling apart around him.

He should have felt grateful. It was a rare thing these days, when technology and miscommunication made relationships and finding love so hard. To find your soulmate was close to impossible, and in a town as small as Beacon Hills. He should have been ecstatic.

He was terrified. If anyone else figured it out that boy was an easy target. More than that, if Derek gave in and let that boy into his heart and if that boy got hurt or-or… worse… Derek would snap, go completely out of his mind.

Feral.

It was that day that Derek decided never to let himself fall for that guy.

* * *

 

Of course someone figured it out.

Of course it was Peter.

Because of all the people out there, it had to be Peter. Peter who was the Alpha that had bitten Scott. Peter who had killed Laura.

Peter who went after Stiles the second Derek figured out what was going on.

When he pushed the boy out of the way, risking his own life, Derek told himself he wasn’t saving his mate; just a guy who was too young to die that night.

Certainly not Derek’s reason to live.

* * *

 

Derek had a plan.

He’d gotten his revenge and had gotten rid of Peter, thus becoming an Alpha. But an Alpha without a pack was as good as an Omega.

So he did his research. The Bite wasn’t something he would offer just like that. Not after Page. So he gave it to people who needed it. Who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Who needed just a little push.

The fact that they were incontrollable teenagers had somehow escaped him.

That… was not part of the plan.

* * *

 

Lydia was not part of any plans.

Peter, sneaking his way out of afterlife, was not part of the plan.

Jackson was not part of the fucking plan!

Stiles, holding him on the surface of the pool for two hours, was not part of the plan.

And Derek could have slipped, so easily. Let himself fall, finally fucking fall for whom he was intended to fall, all along. But he was too stubborn, for both their sakes.

* * *

 

So of course then Jenifer had to happen. Because just an Alpha pack wasn’t enough. Because losing his Betas, and with them – pieces of his own soul, wasn’t enough. He would never forget Stiles’ hand, firmly squeezing his shoulder, unwaveringly there for him even when Derek couldn’t stand himself; when Boyd’s blood was still on his hands and even Cora didn’t offer any support.

* * *

 

They should have looked closer, for the signs. But they had been too relieved to have found what they thought was peace but instead it was a badly masked calm before the storm.

Stiles’ violent nightmares should have rung a bell. The dark circles under his eyes should have been a sign of him slipping into the darkness. Fuck, Derek had been into the darkness, he should have seen that!

It was Derek’s worst nightmare, after the fire. It was a demon wearing Stiles’ face. Eyes that were no longer sunny salted caramel, but dark and malicious. It was Stiles crying in once second and the demon mocking them in the next. It was the spastic but good-natured chaos Stiles had always carried inside, now twisted into something destructive and ugly.  

If Stiles survived that…

No!

 _When_ Stiles survived that Derek would tell him everything. Leave the choice to him and take whatever his mate decided.

* * *

 

Stiles didn’t deserve Derek’s mess on top of his own problems. He had just survived a Nogitsune, for fuck’s sake, now was not the time to burden him with mates and a forever. That was too pressuring, too soon after a severe trauma like a possession. Stiles needed a time to recover, Cora needed to get away from that shithole of a town and be safe, and Derek…

Derek didn’t have any right to dump his own baggage on top of everything Stiles was going through.

* * *

 

But of course Derek’s darkest past, his absolutely worst sin came back haunting him. Kate never gave up on him and as the saying went, there was no rest for the wicked.

And so, Derek was dragged back to Beacon hills, stuck inside his worst and stupidest version of a naïve 16yo. Getting back to himself was only mildly better since it turned out that he was losing his connection with his wolf.

His wolf who was finally giving up on him, after years of begging for his mate, begging to be whole again. After years of being denied, Derek wasn’t surprised it was turning against him.

Braeden was a nice distraction since Stiles was with Malia. Derek’s, obviously, _cousin_ Malia. Of fucking course.

* * *

 

Gaining his full wolf shift gave him the false sense of freedom. Of reconnecting with his wolf while he had been on the verge of death, of reaching a place inside him that offered some kind of peace.

Delirious with that fake sense and naïve as he still obviously was Derek took that chance to get away from all his other problems.

* * *

 

The sirens were blaring, lights flicking red and blue. People were rushing around them and Stiles was bleeding in his arms.

 _Seriously, Derek, what more has to happen for you to tell him?! Fucking man up and do it_!, his wolf growled.

 _I don’t deserve that_ , Derek thought. He had promised himself that night when the smoke was all he could smell: he was unworthy of love. He didn’t deserve a mate. And Stiles most definitely didn’t deserve more shit in his life.

_Stop whining and finding excuses! If he was doing so much better without you how is it that you two always somehow end up together?! Does he have to die before you tell him!?_

_No!_

_Then fucking do it, Derek and leave the decision to him!_

_It’s always been his decision._

_Has it? Then why have you been depriving him for years?_

Derek clutched the now young FBI agent closer and gritted his teeth. Tonight or never.

* * *

 

Stiles sat, propped on a few pillows in his bed, foot bandaged and lifted on another pillow. Derek fidgeted at the foot of the bed.

“You can yell. And be mad…”, he started quietly.

“Oh, I’ll get to that, Big guy. They will be yells of frustration, mostly sexual, after fucking years of deprivation”, Stiles began. Derek’s head snapped up, eyes wide, brain unable to process what his… his mate, was saying. “But first of all”, there was a sly grin, “did you really fucking _imprint_ on me while I was still a baby bump?!”

* * *

 

They talked some more. And agreed that this was not some Twilight bullshit, okay, Stiles?!

Well, mostly Derek agreed. Stiles still snickered, the bastard, even while he was kissing the life out of Derek (while very carefully balancing his wounded foot).

And when Derek was finally, finally tasting that pale, silky flesh he couldn’t help but laugh at…

“Salted caramel. You even taste like that.”

When he looked up, Stiles’ eyes were bright with that color that he loved so much, wide with surprise. His plush lips stretched into a slow smile.

“I love the sound of your laugher”, he whispered. “Happy is a good look on you.”

Derek’s smile only got bigger. He had a feeling _happy_ was a look Stiles would see a lot more often on him from now on.

* * *

 

It was six years later when they took Derek’s nephew to the market with them that history repeated itself.

And when they found Mathew staring at a pregnant woman’s belly Stiles’ laugh was enough to make Derek crack too.


End file.
